


All I can do is keep breathing

by CaptEve



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mourning, New York, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sad, Songfic, Trauma, keep breathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 13:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17509679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptEve/pseuds/CaptEve
Summary: After he returns to earth nothing is the same for Tony Stark. The fight against Thanos is at the horizon. But he is not ready for it. Not yet.Song included: Keep breathing by Ingrid Michaelson





	All I can do is keep breathing

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This is sad.

The Storm is coming but I don't mind.

It is not over. How can it be not over? Isn't everyone gone? Everyone they swore to protect dead? Turned to dust and long blown away in the wind?  
Tony Stark has not left his lab, since the morning they came to check on him in the med-bay and found his bed empty. His oxygen tank discarded next to the pillow. Food and water on the table near by untouched. He fled the care during the early hours of the first winter day. Down to the lab, where the windows can be turned dark and no concept of time and space seems to exist or extend beyond the quietly humming machines.

People are dying, I close my blinds.  
Changing the codes to his floor was mean. He knows that. People seem concerned about him. They seem to care about his well being. And to be honest, he would maybe even let them come to care for him with their words, warm blankets. Their food and water. All those little sentiments that show, you care for each other.  
But behind that lies a second step. One that his oh so genius brain can't ignore. Behind the care and the coddling lies the concern for the greater cause. The beginning of plans and strategies. All in good faith and fueled by the desperation they feel in their hearts ever since the first person in their sight turned to dust and life changed forever.  
It's only natural to want revenge for what has been done. To stand up, with the weight on the world on ones shoulders and the newly forged mentality of a survivor. But he can't. The mere thought about what awaits beyond the locked door of his lab is a horror that he can't begin to let near him.

All that I know is I'm breathing 

Existing seems to be enough of a challenge right now, so where are all the fanfares and cheering crowds that congratulate him on accomplishing just that? Why does there have to be the need for something so much greater? So far out of reach... Existing is painful enough. It's in itself already a step forward from the stages, both mentally and physically, that he passed through on his way from Titan back to earth. Or is it backwards...?  
Breathing in the dark. The only sound coming from the bots in the corner, both on standby and his own heartbeat.  
Why can't this be enough? 

I want to change the world, instead I sleep.

It's not so much sleep as it is loosing consciousness and waking up again. Breath short, heart hammering in his chest and a dull sensation behind his eyes that doesn't  
seem to vanish, no matter how much of the tap water from the sink he's inhaling. He knows that his time left alone is limited, as soon as he wakes up on the ground next to one of his trashcans. Knows that even with the new codes, it will not take long for the others to override his protocols. Not when he's not resisting. Not fighting back. Friday has probably already told them about his state. As his creation his well being is a priority. Overruling everything else.

I want to believe in more than you and me.

They come for him, during his fourth loss of consciousness. They send Pepper and Rhodey. And on any other day it would be the right choice. After any other battle, these two would be the only people in the universe that could piece him back together. Well, maybe they were....sometime.....in the past. Now, all they are is two thirds of his family that makes the absence of the last part even more obvious. Rhodey is strong and calm. He knows of trauma and combat. But Tony can live without him. He has done so in the past. All alone in a cave, with a battery and some metal wires in his chest.  
Pepper is the voice of reason the same way she is the gentle whisper in his ear and the loving arms ever since she came into his world. But after he thought her dead he fought on. After she fell into the flames, she took part of him with her, but he continued the fight.  
He can survive without them. He can live without them. He never wants to, ever again. But he could if the day would come.  
Now. With this. He is not living anymore.  
Only 

But all that I know is I'm breathing. All I can do is keep 

He's back in the med-bay. Not for long though. They wrap the injury on his stomach in new bandages. He gets two hours of nutrition intravenous and the tap water is exchanged for juices and hot coffee.  
It all tastes like nothing. But his body is thankful and the dull throbbing behind his eyes is gone within the hour. It leaves behind the numbness but only until he has the first coffee inside him. Then it is like someone turned a switch inside of him from off to on. After the med-bay he gets escorted to the shower. Never left alone. Privacy seems to be one of the things also dead nowadays, he thinks. It's preparation. He knows it. He let's it 

Now Now

Stylish but practical clothes on the bed. A warm sweater that saves the heat of his body. He let's it fall over the scar on his chest. Nano-reactor somewhere in the lab. Or still on the ship? He's not quite 

Now Now

Only one door away from the others. They kept their distance since he's been back. Well, maybe they were there but first he was unconscious in the med-bay, then he escaped to his lab and when he woke up in the med-bay again it were Pepper and Rhodey at his bedside. Someone had to carry him back though. Steve?

All that I know is I'm breathing.

The door opens without a command or him touching it. Damn sensors everywhere. He enters the room and for one second he wants to keep his eyes on the ground. Wants to turn around and hide back in his lab. He's not ready for their plans. For their strategies and 

All I can do is keep breathing.

He looks up.  
There are no plans. No space left in this room for clever strategies and fighting. Yet, as he looks around there is only the same emptiness behind the eyes of everyone he sees. The same hollowness he has felt taking over his entire being since the moment the warm, breathing boy in his arms became cold dust.  
And he understands.

All we can do is keep breathing.

They are not ready to fight.

All we can do is keep breathing.

They are not about to begin the next chapter in this war. All we can do is keep breathing.

They never could.

All we can do is keep breathing. Until now. He realizes.

All we can do is keep breathing.

It's not them.

All we can do is keep breathing.

It's him. Him that realizes what has to be done. All we can do is keep breathing.  
What needs to start in this room with all of them today. All we can do is keep breathing.  
Because he knows existing is not enough. Existing is not the end. It never will be. Not for them.  
All we can do is keep breathing.  
Once more he's standing in the darkness of a cave. But around him he sees their shadows next to his own. And in their presence he can feel the fire inside him. Inside all of them.  
It's time to stop 

Now...

**Author's Note:**

> This came to my while I should have been writing my paper for university.   
> Leave kudos if you liked it and a comment.


End file.
